[Nick Hill]

Hi Adam

Assuming the width/height of each text layer is irrelevant in determining its position (AE doesn’t give you a way to find this out with expressions) I would try this:

1) add two Slider controls to the null. Call one something like MaxDisplacement and the other Percentage. Percentage would go from 0 to 1; MaxDisplacement is the maximum amount you want each layer to move.

2) in the Position property of each text layer do something like this (you may need to change the names depending on your comp)

maxDisp = thisComp.layer(“Null”).effect(“MaxDisplacement”)(“Slider”);
perc = thisComp.layer(“Null”).effect(“Percentage”)(“Slider”);
dy = maxDisp * perc;
[transform.position[0], transform.position[1] + dy]

Move the Percentage slider between 0 and 1 to move each layer up or down to the maximum value of MaxDisplacement. You can still position each layer because its position is taken into account in the expression.

Hope this helps

Nick

[Nick Hill]

I think you’d be insane to try this in AE 😉

I can only think of two ways to do it – either you load one text layer with a massive string representing all 100,000 names (not practical, would probably bust the maximum length of the string, and you wouldn’t be able to position any of the text) or you create 100,000 layers, one for each name. Until Adobe think of some kind of efficient way to instance layers, this would likely kill your CPU and memory instead of the graphics card. Plus it would be horrendously slow. I’ve done things before with only a few hundred layers which are all controlled with the same expression code linked to expression controls, and depending on how complex the expressions are I tend to get between 1 and 3 fps on an 8-core machine.

Also, it sounds like each name has an associated date determining its position. There is no way of storing data like this in AE efficiently.

It sounds like what you’ve got already works pretty well – is it Flash or Processing or something? I don’t really get why you want to change it…

[Nick Hill]

I *think* I’ve done it (well, it’s good enough, at least). Expression for the rotation:


wo = effect("WheelOffset")("Angle"); // arbitrary angle control for fine tuning
Cxy = thisComp.layer("Tandem").effect("RearWheelContactPoint")("Point"); // C in the diagram
Axy = transform.position; // hinge point: A
Bxy = effect("WheelPoint")("Point"); // Rear wheel contact point: B
Dxy = thisComp.layer("TrailerWheelGuide").transform.position; // trailer wheel guide: D

c = length(Axy, Bxy);

theta = Math.atan2(Dxy[1]-Cxy[1], Dxy[0]-Cxy[0]);

sintheta = Math.sin(theta);
costheta = Math.cos(theta);
xs = Axy[0] - Cxy[0];
ys = Axy[1] - Cxy[1];

alpha = Math.asin(((sintheta * xs) - (costheta * ys)) / c) + theta;

radiansToDegrees( alpha ) + wo;


Now to figure out why the guy’s shins are coming out of his shoes whenever I move the bike around….

[Nick Hill]

Never mind. I did kind of explain the first time round. I wasn’t particularly making a new point, just thought it might be of passing interest….

[Nick Hill]

True, but it *is* handheld (and deliberately shaky). I was just interested in the way the rolling shutter is so obvious in the second clip where it’s not in the first.

[Nick Hill]

Hi Ari

What QT codec did you use? Quicktime is a kind of wrapper format – ie, it can use many different types of codec, some of which Premiere might not handle properly (I know for example Premiere on Windows can’t use certain FCP quicktimes without conversion). You may have to convert the quicktimes again. Incidentally if you have the latest version of CS3 (3.2? I think) this should handle the native MP4s straight out of the camera without having to convert.

Hope that helps

Nick

[Nick Hill]

What settings are you using? There’s no reason why 5 mins should be over a gig if it’s compressed. If you’re in CS4 check the settings before you send to media encoder (you can also change them once you’re there) in particular the bit rate. A rough rule of thumb (at 25fps anyway) is width * height / 90 to give you a decent quality file – this is a subjective thing but seems to work. eg for a 720 x 576 project you get 720 * 576 / 90 = 4600 kbps. For the first part of your question – how are you applying transitions? I haven’t had that happen before but it can be temperamental… if you’re applying a cross dissolve effect for example have you tried setting opacity keyframes instead to fade from one track to the other?

Cheers

Nick

[Nick Hill]

Edit….. I’ve found a (marginally) quicker way than relinking every clip, which is this:

– Import the folder containing all the EX clip folders
– Alt-drag each clip over its corresponding offline clip in the timeline.

It’s not perfect at all (who am I trying to kid, it’s a ballache) but it’s a little faster at least.

[Nick Hill]

That’s very helpful, thanks for posting. I got my EX3 this week and haven’t had much of a chance to play with it yet so this will help a lot 🙂

[Nick Hill]

Ah, good idea – thanks. Still puzzled why they’d work from CS3 but not CS4. I’ve rendered out a couple of tests with Procoder and so I’ll see if they work.

Cheers

Nick